Britain’s musical life has been greatly enriched over the past three decades by the artistry, dedication and leadership of Sakari Oramo. Those qualities are set to bear fine fruit throughout the 2024-25 season thanks not least to his compelling programmes as Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The wide scope of the Finnish conductor’s interests is reflected in his carefully curated concerts at the Barbican Centre, hallmarked by their diversity of repertoire, imaginative connections between compositions and wholehearted promotion of new work. His latest London series follows the announcement of the extension of his contract with the BBC Symphony Orchestra until 2030, the centenary year of its foundation.

Sakari Oramo’s Barbican season embraces monumental compositions by Mahler and Busoni; the eagerly awaited UK premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s final work, her trumpet concerto HUSH; Vaughan Williams’ Toward the Unknown Region; and works by Grażyna Bacewicz, Dora Pejačević and Karol Szymanowski. His international conducting schedule, meanwhile, includes guest dates with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Gürzenich Orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the NDR Elbphilharmonieorchester, the Orchestre national de France and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

News of the extension of Sakari Oramo’s contract with the BBC Symphony Orchestra was announced on September 11th, ahead of his performance at the Last Night of the BBC Proms on September 14th. It represents the conductor’s clear commitment to his orchestra’s future development. “I am delighted to renew my contract with the BBC Symphony Orchestra,” he comments. “There’s an aspiration, shared by all parties at the BBC, to take the orchestra forward to its centenary in 2030. Big things are planned for the hundredth anniversary and around the orchestra’s move to what will be its purpose-built home at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. We will work hard to establish our presence in that part of London and attract a local audience to the new BBC Music Studios. It’s a great opportunity to take what the BBC Symphony Orchestra is about to a diverse community, especially as we enter prepare to our second century. I am genuinely excited by the potential and the possibilities.”

Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra open their season at the Barbican Centre on 26 September with Mahler’s Symphony No. 6 ‘Tragic’. They meet again later this autumn to explore the tantalising coupling of Bacewicz’s Symphony No.2 and Busoni’s Piano Concerto, with Kirill Gerstein as soloist (1 November). Oramo and Gerstein will perform Busoni’s titanic work with the Orchestre national de France at the Auditorium du Louvre (10 October) and the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Philharmonie Berlin (17, 18 & 19 October), where the programme will also include Debussy’s Trois Nocturnes. Details of the second half of Oramo’s BBC Symphony Orchestra season will be announced on 9 October.

“It will be a treat to perform Mahler Six with the BBC Symphony,” he notes. “We will follow the order of the movements as it appears in the work’s first edition, with the Scherzo coming before the Andante, and I intend to have three hammer blows in the finale rather than two. I’m going for what works dramatically. And then we’ll mark the centenary of Busoni’s death with his Piano Concerto in Paris, Berlin and London. I’ve paired it with Debussy’s Trois Nocturnes in Berlin, which I think makes a good match. There’s always so much interest in the Busoni concerto because of its vast scale and also because of its musical depth. Kirill and I recorded it with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2017, and we’re delighted to be able to revisit it for the Busoni centenary. I will have the male chorus on stage, since it’s very impractical to have an offstage chorus and it can sound so diffuse and unclear that way. It works perfectly with the chorus and orchestra together and does justice to Busoni’s music.”

The conductor’s wholehearted advocacy of work by female composers registers clearly in his programmes this season. He continues to champion the music of Croatian composer Dora Pejačević, opening his Barbican concert on 8 November with her Overture in D minor Op.49 and coupling it with Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No.1, with Ilya Gringolts as soloist; the music of Grażyna Bacewicz, likewise, figures prominently in his schedule. “As well as performing her Second Symphony at the Barbican, we’ll also record it as part of our Bacewicz series for Chandos, together with her more modern-sounding Concerto for Orchestra and Piano Concerto, with Peter Donohoe as soloist. I like how she never rattles around on one idea for long, so her pieces are concise and very effective.”

Oramo’s affinity for the music of Kaija Saariaho is mirrored in three projects this season. He will make the first recording of the Finnish composer’s ethereal orchestral work Vista with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in November for the record label that he co-founded with the soprano Anu Komsi. This will be paired with two other world premiere recordings of Saariaho's works: Saarikoski Songs in the orchestral arrangement and Three Preludes for soprano and organ. Saariaho’s Saarikoski Songs feature in Oramo’s two concerts with the Gürzenich Orchestra at the Cologne Philharmonie on 11 & 12 January. Finnish jazz trumpeter and composer Verneri Pohjola will join Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre for the UK premiere of her Trumpet Concerto HUSH (24 January 2025). The work, written for Pohjola and with his mastery of extended techniques in mind, was completed shortly before Saariaho’s death in June 2023. It has been programmed together with Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending, the Adagio from Mahler’s Symphony No.10 and Vaughan Williams’ early setting of words by Walt Whitman, Toward the Unknown Region.

“Kaija had to dictate much of the concerto from her sickbed,” notes Sakari Oramo. “This whole programme reflects the sense of loss of such an important, inspirational composer. Each piece in the concert represents a voyage into the unknown. Kaija was really inspired with what Verneri can do with his instrument and has captured his artistry in the piece. It’s her last work and I think it’s quite mind-blowing. That’s why it’s at the centre of this programme and everything else is organised around it.”

Other highlights of Oramo’s season comprise dates in Cologne in January and March and a seven-concert tour to Japan in February with the Gürzenich Orchestra. Their tour programmes include Mahler’s Symphony No.5, which received its world premiere from the Gürzenich Orchestra in 1904 under the composer’s direction, Beethoven’s Symphony No.7, and concertos by Bruch, Mozart and Robert Schumann. Britta Byström’s Violin Concerto Shortening Days and Elgar’s Symphony No.1 are on the bill for the conductor’s concerts with the NDR Elbphilharmonieorchester (21 & 22 November), while Bacewicz’s Symphony No.4 and Debussy’s Trois Nocturnes feature in his programmes with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (28, 29 & 30 November).

“Programming is a great passion of mine,” Sakari Oramo observes. “One must always think about the listener, of course, and consider putting pieces together that create aesthetically interesting ‘stories’. And it’s also important to enlighten and educate the audience. That is fundamental to what we do at the BBC, but I feel that every orchestra should do the same. This is why my repertoire is wide and the reason I’m constantly absorbing new pieces and revising my knowledge of those I’ve done before. It’s one of the great joys of the job.”

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